Watkins makes a solid case for treating Barbauld as a major poet. Choice Watkin's own vision of Barbauld, presented in Anna Letitia Barbauld and Eighteenth-Century Visionary Poetics, is a useful one. His detailed exploration of the intellectual and visionary scope of Barbauld's poetry will no doubt have a significant impact on the way in which this still underappreciated writer is subsequently viewed.
Claire Knowles European Romantic Review Daniel Watkins's Anna Letitia Barbauld and Eighteenth-Century Visionary Poetics makes a convincing case for reading Barbauld's published volumes as volumes, rather than as atomized poems... It is a bold claim, but one borne out by the quality of Barbauld's poetry. The Year's Work in English Studies Watkins's work offers a remarkable guide to [Barbaul's Poems], and a fine celebration of Barbauld's distinctive political and poetic intellect. The Year's Work in English Studies Thoughtfully engaging with major trends in critical perspectives on female poetics, Watkin's goal, explored in his introduction, is to enlarge our discussions of women's writing in the period... This, indeed, is the great strength of his discussion of Barbauld as visionary and as poet: he seeks to bring out the allusive richness of each poem while remaining alert t the larger aims of the volume as a whole.
Felicity James Modern Language Review ... Watkins is the reader Barbauld deserves.
Harriet Kramer Linkin Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature